RIC-NET to establish Plant Clinics

Plant Clinics to be established by RIC-NET

RIC-NET together with SATNET is in the final stages of establishing Plant clinics in the Rwenzori region to help rural farmers access information on pests and disease control. The concept of plant clinics has been realized as one of the strategies that will help rural farmers have an interface with plant doctors who have trained by Global Plant clinic, CABI, UK in collaboration with the department of crop protection ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries.

This idea of plant clinic was introduced in Uganda three years ago with an aim of helping rural farmers have access to extension services from plant doctors trained by Global Plant clinic since it has been observed that most extension officers at district and sub county levels do not have enough time available for farmers compared to the number of farmers in that particular sub county/district.

Secondly, it was observed that most farmers only report cases of animal disease rather than plant diseases but a health nation needs a health plant. Thus a need to enhance the capacity of the rural farmers’ to report cases of plant disease and receive advice from trained plant doctors.

Global Plant clinic, CABI, UK in collaboration with the department of crop protection ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries has trained two staff from RIC-NET and SATNET in skills of how to become plant doctors.
During this training a lot of attention was put on identifying symptoms and causes of diseases and pests, how to carryout a diagnosis of infected plants and skills in interviewing farmers who bring samples to the plant clinics.

The two trained plant doctors will then trained RIC-NET and SATNET CPFs and progressive farmers in the similar skills to enable the plant clinics to have enough man power to handle farmers’ needs.
Details visit RIC-NET and SATNET offices in fort portal or www.ricnet.info


Timothy Balikenga
Information officer.